Dr. Priyanka Jacob Published with Oxford University Press
Priyanka Jacob, assistant professor in the Department of English, recently published a book, The Victorian Novel on File: Secrets, Hoards, and Information Storage, with Oxford University Press.
“Through her scholarship and teaching, Dr. Jacob connects Victorian literature to broader cultural dynamics,” said Peter J. Schraeder, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, “Her expertise offers students and readers a fresh perspective on how stories of the past continue to shape the present.”
Jacob’s area of study is primarily focused on the form and theory of the novel. Her book, The Victorian Novel on File, demonstrates how the capacious nineteenth-century novel was shaped by the period’s information explosion, gathering more data than it can use.
“My approach is distinctive in combining information studies, material culture studies, and theories of the novel form,” Jacob said. “I am fascinated by storage as a site of potential, seemingly frozen in time, yet oriented toward a鈥痜uture use; memorializing the past, yet gathering dust.”
Jacob is a long-time reader of nineteenth-century novels, drawn to their ‘clutter and capaciousness.’ While reading, she would consider the significance of minor material details, the temporal effects of the size of the novel, and how the desire to gather and preserve (data, objects, possibilities, and futures) shaped Victorian culture and our own.
“In response to an exponential increase in the amount of available data, storage became a priority: save everything, because it might matter later,” Jacob stated.
The book argues that the long Victorian novel is shaped by the dynamics of this information culture and the emphasis on accumulation, sometimes at the expense of communication, circulation, and value.
“The novel offers a space in which the things of the past are held, and the future is held open,” she said.
Jacob is also exploring how epistolary narratives–stories told through letters– function as powerful tools of storytelling and connection across centuries. She recently taught a capstone charting the evolution of epistolary storytelling from the 18th century to the present, as well as a graduate seminar on Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, one of the longest novels written in English.
“These courses helped me think more deeply about narrative and time,” Jacob reflected. “The letter form persists as a powerful mechanism of storytelling and interconnection, even in the digital age.”
Learn more about Jacob and